16 Years
by Gypsy Love
Summary: The Outsiders from Johnny's point of view.
1. Chapter 1

My mother was screaming at me. It wasn't new. My old man wasn't around. I bet he was at a bar. It was the only place he ever went. So my mother was yelling, cussing me out, saying stuff like I was a little shit and useless. I had my head down, just taking it. What was I supposed to do? She wouldn't hit me, she didn't usually, anyway. Sometimes she did, sure, but it was just like a slap across the face, no big deal. Getting hit was more of a big deal if my old man was doing the hitting. See, he got drunk and real mean. He'd use his fists and his belt and once he used a two-by-four. That wasn't fun. It was either that or get ignored.

I looked up at my mother, at her face twisted in anger. I shrugged and took off. What was the point? That made her yell louder, and I could hear my name echoing after me as I headed toward Ponyboy's house.

"Johnny! Get back here! Johnny!"

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jean jacket and just kept walking, and she stopped yelling. Maybe she'd go in the house and have a drink, if there were any left. As I neared Pony's house I heard some noise, yelling and cars screeching and stuff, but that was normal for this neighborhood. I didn't think anything of it. But then I thought the yelling I heard sounded familiar. I stopped and listened, heard it again, a high pitched scream for help. It was Ponyboy. I felt my heart start beating faster. I knew what was going on right away, I knew what that yell meant. It was the socs. A drunken bunch of them probably hunted him down and were planning on beating the shit out of him. Sure they were.

I took off at a dead run toward all the noise, and I wasn't the only one. Darry and Soda were already there, running the socs off, and I saw Two-bit and Steve, too. The socs were in their car and screeching away, and I even saw Dally hurling a good size rock at their window, trying to break it. Too bad he missed.

Soda and Darry had run back to Ponyboy, who was laying on the ground. I went a little closer and saw him, he was pretty much okay, just shaken up and scared. The socs had got me a while ago and it was pretty bad. This could have been just as bad if everyone hadn't been around. When it was me no one was around.

Ponyboy's parents were dead. They died in a car accident. That sucked. His parents were cool, both of them, they never hit him or nothing, and they were, I don't know. They were supportive, I guess. Not like my parents. I wished I had parents like his but now they were gone. So it was like now, his older brothers were trying to be his parents, in a way. His oldest brother Darry was giving him all these rules and stuff and I knew Ponyboy kind of resented it, but I thought Darry just didn't really know what to do. He was only like 20, and now he had to raise a 13 year old.

Pony was sitting up now, and Soda was wiping the blood away from this cut he got when the socs jumped him. They must have had a blade, they usually did. They did when they beat me up, but they didn't use it, they just threatened me with it, they threatened to slit my throat with it, and I thought they were gonna. After that beating, man, I was so screwed up, not like I wasn't before.

Darry was scowling at Ponyboy, mad at him for walking alone. He knew it was dangerous, but I knew Pony liked to be alone sometimes, watching movies alone and stuff. He was young, like three years younger than me, but he was pretty smart. Not about practical stuff at all, he was the kind of kid who would leave in the freezing weather and forget his jacket and he'd walk alone despite the fact that socs jumped us for kicks. That wasn't the kind of smart I meant. He'd say these off the wall things, stuff from books you'd never heard of and crazy ideas that would make sense in a funny way. I liked to listen to him, especially when we were alone and he'd say that kind of shit. Now me, I wasn't like that at all. I did crappy in school and already flunked a year. I wasn't that much better with practical shit, either. I was barely keeping it together. Sometimes I wasn't keeping it together at all.

I was sitting on the curb, watching Ponyboy try not to cry. He was younger and wanted to seem tough like Darry and Dallas, but getting jumped like that would make you cry. I didn't cry ever, not anymore. My old man had been beating me my entire life and shit just didn't make me cry, except that beating from the socs. It was because it wasn't like it was with my old man. No matter how much he hurt me and stuff he was still my father. And it wasn't all that bad. A few punches and licks with the belt, you know. So what? But those socs nearly killed me and the stuff they said, God. I think I blocked a lot of it out.


	2. Chapter 2

I sat on the edge of the curb listening to the guys talk. I didn't say much, not anything, really. I was quiet, even around these guys, and they were my only friends. I don't know why I was so quiet. Maybe cause most times I said anything at my house I'd get hit or yelled at. It makes it hard to just be so talkative, like Two-bit. I wished I could be like all the other guys in different ways. Sometimes I wished I could be funny and outgoing like Two-bit, or strong and sure of everything like Darry, or smart like Ponyboy. Or like Dally, you know, cool and tough and everything. But I wasn't, and I knew I wasn't. I tried not to let it bother me.

Dally handed me a cigarette and I took it, feeling like I could use a smoke. I was a little shook up about Ponyboy getting jumped. I knew what would have happened if everybody didn't show up when they did. I struck a match and cupped my hand against the wind and inhaled, feeling a little better already. From the corner of my eye I watched Ponyboy, and he seemed to be calming down. He wasn't shaking anymore or crying. He'd be alright.

Dal said he was going to the movies on Friday, and it was funny, this thing. Darry couldn't go since he was always working. I couldn't remember the last time I saw Darry just hanging out. He was always going to work. He worked at two jobs to pay for everything for Soda and Pony. Well, Soda worked, too. Pony was too young, but work wasn't the thing for him. School was. I was serious when I'd said how smart he was. He got put up a grade and everything. I thought about how I could sometimes hardly understand anything at school. It was like I'd almost get something and then they'd rush on to the next thing. And at my house my folks always said how stupid I was, and I guess they were right.

So Dally wants to go to the movies, and Soda and Steve have dates or something, and Steve kinda glares at Ponyboy since he doesn't want him tagging along, and that gets Pony mad. And Darry looks like he wants to go and have fun for once but he can't ever have fun now, not since his parents died and all the responsibility for everything is on him. And Two-bit says he's gonna get drunk that night but maybe he'll show up. I'm just listening, not saying nothing.

"Me and Johnny'll come," Pony said, and asked Darry for permission. I didn't need permission to do anything. My parents didn't give a shit if I ever came home. I was planning on going to this movie before Ponyboy said I'd go with him, there was nothing else to do, plus I liked hanging out with Dally. He was cool.

Everyone kind of drifted away. Maybe Steve and Soda were going to hang out with their girlfriends. Two-bit was off to get drunk. He was at least funny and nice when he drank, just goofy. My old man, though, when he drank, he was so mean. That was when the worst beatings ended up happening, when he was completely drunk. Dally took off, too, and it was anybody's guess where he was going.

Darry called from inside the house saying that Ponyboy had homework to do. We were sitting on the porch and I was kinda sad that he had to go, since I had nowhere to go. He stood up and rubbed his arms in the sudden chill as the sun set.

"See ya, Johnny," he said.

"See ya," I answered, watching him go into the house. I stood up and kicked a can that was in the weeds, watched it roll away. It was getting kind of cold and this jean jacket was never warm enough. I took off, feeling in my pockets for some money. I had some, a few buck and some quarters. It would be enough to play pinball at the pool hall for a while.

It was getting late, I'd played pin ball and pool for hours. I should be doing homework like Pony was, but homework gave me a headache and I hated reading all the words that would get all jumbled up and backwards, sounding shit out like a little kid. I'd just go into school with nothing done, that wasn't new. The teachers didn't expect nothing from me, anyways. It wasn't like the heart attacks they'd have if Pony didn't do his homework.


	3. Chapter 3

It was late, real late. It was always this decision time. What should I do? Stay out all night? Go home? Crash at someone's house? No one really minded if I crashed at their house, but I felt bad doing that all the time. Sleeping outside wasn't great, but if things were bad enough at my house I would do it. But I had to go home sometimes. It was really this thought I had that things would be better, somehow. Like my folks would be cool and not like how they usually were. I didn't know, though. I walked around, the wind whipping around me, everything was closed, all the bars and all the pool halls and everything, every diner and pizza place. It was so late. I rubbed my hands together and flipped the collar of my jean jacket up and lit a cigarette for something to do. I had school tomorrow. Didn't look like I'd make it. If I ever fell asleep tonight I wouldn't wake up in time for school. What did it matter anyway?

I yawned as I passed the vacant lot. From here I could see my house and I could hear them fighting. I sighed. Guessed I wasn't going home. So I curled up on the bench and shivered, it was freezing. But I slept a little.

I woke up feeling all stiff from being so cold all night. I sat up and wondered what time it was. Fuck school. I wasn't gonna go. I lit up a cigarette and smoked it even though I'd been smoking too much lately. I'd have to cut it out a little. My mouth tasted like an ashtray. So I pitched the cigarette half smoked into the street. I headed toward my house, knowing that my parents would be passed out somewhere.

It was nine in the morning. School had started two hours ago. I wouldn't go in late. Then I'd get detention and I hated that. I got detention a lot when I ended up going. And my parents wouldn't notice anything. They didn't care.

My house was awful. Everything was all over the place from their fights, lamps overturned and empty liquor bottles everywhere. I stepped over the broken glass and the furniture on its side and headed toward the kitchen. I could hear my old man snoring away in the bedroom, dead to the world. Good.

There wasn't much to eat here, but there was cereal, no milk. I just ate the cereal dry. I peeked in my parents' bedroom. They were both there, looking more passed out than asleep. I narrowed my eyes at my father, thinking of all the times he's hurt me. And he'd hurt me again, there was no way to stop it. There was no way out. I thought of a way out, though. I looked around this run down house, this run down part of the city, everything bleak and hopeless. I thought of the war in Vietnam and how if it was still going on in two years I could get drafted for it. Maybe I could just kill myself. I could. There were plenty of ways to do it. I could slit my wrists, I could take a handful of sleeping pills with a pint of vodka. I could sit in a running car in a garage. I could get hit by a car. I could hang myself. But that last one made me shudder. Maybe I wouldn't kill myself just yet.

I flipped on the T.V. and watched it for awhile, but I was listening for the sounds of my folks getting up. They might yell at me for not being in school. Who knew? When I heard them getting up I took off. I just didn't feel like dealing with them getting mad about me skipping school or anything else they felt like getting mad about.

I headed to the DX station to hang out with Soda for a bit. He was there, cleaning the windshield of a car.

"Hey, Johnny, what's going on?" he said, and I shrugged and didn't say nothing.

"Skipped school, huh?" he said, moving onto another car and checking under the hood.

"Yeah. I overslept," I told him, taking a swig from the bottle of coke he gave me.

I took off after awhile. I just walked around a bit. It was okay to be by myself during school, since most of the socs were in school. They never skipped, either. You didn't get into a good college skipping school all the time. But maybe that didn't matter since they had all that money, anyway. They had all the breaks. I didn't care.


	4. Chapter 4

I saw Pony walking toward the DX and I drank the last of the coke and tossed the glass bottle into the wastebasket, heard it clang inside of it. I lit up a cigarette, leaned against a car, flipped my hair out of my eyes. It never did any good. It always fell right back in them.

"Hey, Johnny," Pony said, slapping me on the back in a playful way, but I felt myself tense up when he did it. I always tensed up if anyone went to touch me at all.

"Hey," I said softly, feeling slightly sick from smoking so much and eating so little. I had that thought that sometimes came into my head, this thought that I could be better than I was. I could quit smoking so much and eat more and go to school and try harder, but all of that seemed so hard. School made my head hurt, and it made me feel even worse about all this shit.

Pony got himself a coke and I watched him guzzle it down, and I looked at his bag filled with books that was next to him, right next to his beat up white converse sneakers. I shook my head. That bag was full of books, he did homework even on the weekend. I hadn't been to school in so long that I didn't even know what they were doing in any of the classes, never mind bringing home a bagful of books on the weekend. I bit my lip and glanced at Pony, he looked young, kinda. He looked as old as I did, but I looked real young, too. I knew I looked about 14, and that was pretty lousy. He looked like a young punk kid but I knew he wouldn't stay that way, I knew he'd go on to college and some kind of career, and he'd get out of this shit hole neighborhood and this shit hole city.

"Let's go to my house and get something to eat," he said to me, and I nodded, followed him the few blocks to his house. There was left over fried chicken from the night before, and some bags of potato chips.

It wasn't too long after that that we were gonna meet Dally on one of the street corners. I stood there kicking at the rocks on the sidewalk, watching the little bits of dust and sand get kicked up with them. Ponyboy ran a comb through his hair. Him and Soda did have the best hair in the whole town.

Dally showed up. It wasn't that certain that he would, you never knew. Sometimes things got in the way for Dally, like girls or a fight with someone. Dal would fight with anyone, even his friends. Well, not me. He never did fight with me, not physically. He'd kind of yell at me like he yelled at everybody but come to think of it, he hardly ever even yelled at me. That was funny.

I looked at Dally's white blond hair, you've never seen hair so blond. It was kind of amazing to me, especially since my hair was so dark. His eyes were so blue, too, they looked like winter.

"Hey, Johnny, what's up?" he said, kind of messing up my hair, which I didn't really like. I jerked my head away, but I liked when he paid attention to me. I shrugged and didn't answer. He looked at me for a second too long and then he shrugged, too.

Now that we were with Dally what we did was up to him, and me and Pony were just following along. So we trailed after Dally to some diners and fooled around blowing straws at waitresses and we went into little convenience stores and watched Dally steal half the place and we chased after some kids in a field. The field was all long dried grass and small rocks and bits of glass and patches of dirt.

Once it started to get dark we headed over to the drive-in movie theater. I knew Dal was gonna sneak in without paying. You could sneak in right under a fence. So we all followed him, getting our jeans dirty in the dusty area under that bit of fence.

There were a lot of people there. Sometimes that kind of bothered me. There was a lot of noise, kids shouting to each other from cars, the movie had started up and that was blaring away at us, and Dally was talking almost non-stop. It could be too much, and I'd kind of blank out a little, just stop paying attention to all of it. I just followed the two of them. I thought they might go to the concession stand and get some popcorn or something but they didn't, they headed straight for the seats.

I saw the two girls who didn't belong in these cheap seats that were usually filled with greasers who were too poor to even have a car for the drive-ins. Like us. We belonged in these seats with our ratty run down clothes and long greasy hair and banged up old sneakers. These girls, one a red head and one with dark hair, they were dressed all nice and you could tell they were rich, they were socs. Dally sat right behind them and started in with his tricks, and I slumped down in my seat next to him and so did Pony. I widened my eyes and looked over at Ponyboy, and he looked back at me with the same look. His ears were turning a dark red, I could see that even through the darkness. Dally was, he could say some shit that would make you want to die and crawl under the chairs.

Dally thought it was funny, and I guess in a way it was, but it was also...it was kind of disrespectful for some reasons. It wasn't just because these girls were pretty and they were rich, which was why he was talking like that. It was because, it was hard to explain...it was because it didn't matter that they were pretty and rich, or that they were socs and didn't really belong sitting over here, it didn't really give him the right to treat them like that because all that was surface stuff, which was the same reasons the socs thought they could just beat the shit out of us for no reason other than that we were greasers...he was kind of doing the same thing to them. I couldn't take it.

"I'm gonna go get a coke," I said, standing up and bolting out of there.


End file.
